Review of Adobe Creative Cloud – It’s the Worst

Recently I decided to signup for the adobe creative cloud monthly subscription plan available from Adobe at http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud.html. I have older versions (CS3) of Photoshop and Dreamweaver and wanted to try getting the latest copies of each on my system. Also thought it was a nice deal as it would allow me to have a full version of Acrobat and I could play with Illustrator in case I ever had clients send me AI files that I needed to work with.

So in theory, it was a pretty good deal…$50 monthly for three/four solid adobe products, two of which I use on a daily basis. In practice, it turned out to be a pretty bad deal due to the fact that Adobe makes really buggy products and their customer service is terrible. After two months, I’ve cancelled my subscription and am going back to using my old version of Photoshop. And instead of going back to Dreamweaver, I’ve decided to go with Aptana Studio 3 since it has several excellent features such as the ability to synch projects with Git, Subversion and automatically upload via FTP when saving a file.

The main problems I ran into with my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription that forced me to cancel it are outlined below:

There is a pretty severe bug with Dreamweaver CS6 that would pop up at least once every fifteen minutes. It seems like if you have a project set up to sync with Subversion that Dreamweaver would constantly be trying to check their synch status with subversion every time you make a change. As I would be editing files, Dreamweaver would freeze for 30 seconds or so and then prompt me that it had experienced an error trying to communicate with the subversion repository. This was annoying as the activities that I was doing at the time did not required subversion in any way, so it was a needless problem and seriously slowed my work down.

When setting up a subversion project, Dreamweaver asks you whether it is http or https. If you choose https, Dreamweaver will automatically set the port to 443. This is nice and good, but it also sticks the port number in the url of your repository url. It took me a few minutes to understand why nothing was working when I tried to synch with subversion. My repository doesn’t listen on 443, so having 443 in the url was breaking the process. Some might not think this was a bug, but the fact that the error reporting didn’t indicate what the problem was is definitely a bug in my opinion.

You can only activate a creative cloud subscription on up to two machines and there is no ability to buy an add on activation. I would gladly pay an additional $15-$25 per month to be able to activate an additional machine, but Adobe doesn’t give you that option. You can only buy two activations at a time.

I made the mistake of activating my Creative Cloud subscription on my two desktops and on my laptop without realizing that you can only activate it on two machines. I then deactivated one desktop and tried to deactivate another so that I could start over by activating the software on a desktop and a laptop. The problem is that you can only deactivate once per 72 hours. So rather than being able to deactivate my installs and start over, I had to wait three days. There was no exception to this and customer support was unwilling to help me. Here’s a portion of my chat transcript with them:

Peter Holcomb: I am still getting the error 194:110
Peter Holcomb: it tells me activation failed
Shivashankar: Are you getting the above error while activating the software or deactivating the product?
Peter Holcomb: activating the software
Peter Holcomb: I can walk you through what I’m doing.
Peter Holcomb: 1) I click on Dreamweaver CS6 icon to open it
Shivashankar: In this case, please try to activate the product within 72 hours.
Peter Holcomb: 2) It tells me “Maximum Activations Exceed” and gives me the option to “License this Software” or “Continue”
Peter Holcomb: 3) I click continue
Peter Holcomb: I log in
Peter Holcomb: I can’t wait 72 hours
Peter Holcomb: is there anyway I can activate it now?
Shivashankar: Peter, this is a known issue, A backend problem is preventing your product from launching. Wait three days and attempt to launch the product.
Peter Holcomb: I can’t wait three days
Peter Holcomb: This is not a viable solution
Peter Holcomb: If I have to wait three days, I’ll cancel my subscription
Peter Holcomb: to creative cloud
Shivashankar: I am sorry to hear that.
Shivashankar: Please click here:
Shivashankar: Please click the above link for the confirmation to wait for 72 hours.
Shivashankar: If you wish to cancel the subscription, I will be glad to check that for you.
Peter Holcomb: Okay, this is the last time I buy anything from adobe. This is pretty crappy service
Shivashankar: I am sorry for the inconvenience.
Shivashankar: Our Technical specialists are check this concern and this issue will be fixed at the earliest.

So, in summary, it only took two months for me to understand what a poor deal the Creative Cloud offering from Adobe is. I’ll most likely never buy an Adobe product again due to the buggy nature of their products and their poor customer service.

Update, September 5, 2014

I originally published this back in September, 2012. This post is now 2 years old and got some incredible responses because of Adobe’s eventual decision in 2013 to go to a subscription model only. I think it’s currently at spot #4 on Google if you search for “Adobe creative cloud review”.

At the time, I was incredibly disappointed with the service and cancelled my cloud subscription. I now no longer use any Adobe products other than an old copy of Photoshop CS2 I bought years ago. I’ve since switch all of my development to using IntelliJ. It was the right decision and I’m happy I made it. The worst part, for me, was the fact that I had originally agreed to a 1-year contract with Adobe, so I was never able to cancel my subscription until the following September of 2013.

81 thoughts on “Review of Adobe Creative Cloud – It’s the Worst”

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Do not let your student sign up for the Creative Cloud SCAM, after a year the price goes up and when you call to cancel they say you have to pay a 50% cancellation of the unused contract, $133. My daughter was 16 when she signed up for this for a school project. She has now joined the ARMY and will not even have access to a computer. They want a student that makes minimum wage to pay these ridiculous fees! Like Adobe does not have enough money already, and has to steal from the young children in this world! The only solution was to cancel her debt card so they could not charge her anymore. I asked the guy if he read the small print in a contract when he was 16, they should not let minors sign up for stuff like this without parental consent, and he said they only have to be 13. Adobe has seen the last of my money and support.

Yep, just cancelled after a full year of membership. It really is the worst. I will likely go back to my very old copies and use those, until I find new software. It is so sad, as I really liked Photoshop and Illustrator. The CC is expensive and completely unreliable. It often doesn’t work, needs to be reloaded, etc. You cannot cancel before your year is up. Such a big bummer.

I tried to cancel within the 14 trial period and was told it would end without any effort my part. When I was charged the following month, I was told I couldn’t cancel without paying the cancellation fee.

Interesting comments, making me re-think my decision to go to cc.
I’m a photographer and currently using photoshop cs6 and lightroom 5.7
Was thinking about going to cc but after reading so many negative but similar comments, I think I might stay with what I have.
Any comments or thoughts would be welcome.

I love everything about the creative cloud except the execution of the sync and the desktop app. It always freezes my computer. startup Takes forever, shut down takes forever, and thats if it even works. The apps are awesome. If they could figure out that my entire working life shouldn’t have to hinge on the desktop app trying to start it would be awesome. I absolutely hat the desktop app. I cant express it enough, for a company with products i love they have absolutely screwed this one up. I mean the desktop app should be unheard and never a topic of discussion, but it is the worst ever and constantly freezes the computer. My god it sucks. just the worst. rant over.

I am also a photographer using CS6 . 2 months ago i decided to subscribe to the CC as my lightroom crashed and could not be revive !!! What a big mistake ! First the message on installation said that it was corrupted . After few attempts I was able to install it but could not work with any of them. After that all king of bugs appeared on my system : trash do not empty, applications are closing, touch pad not responding, my pro printer refuse to respons, just a real mess … I called them : they want it access to my laptop and I refuse !! So I uninstall everything that had a CC attached to it with their help as it creeps everywhere.

Using my CS6 for all my edits . I do not miss Lightroom as I never liked their filing system .

I upgraded to Adobe CC nearly a year ago. I would love it if Adobe would stop updating the tools in Photoshop and Lightroom, I have a heavy workload to get through and am constantly frustrated by the fact that one minute I know how to use tool and the next time I try to use it, the tool has been changed and now I have to re-learn it. REALLY ANNOYING!

I also had a similar experience with Adobe Creative Cloud. Insisted on taking 50% of the annual subscription and they rely on the Auto-renew passing without being noticed. Took me for over £700. I will find alternatives

They’re still the worst customer service ever. Adobe seems to have gathered for themselves a reputation for THE worst customer support in IT history. I’m having an issue too (they deleted all my files). The help line is no help at all. They just have the same scripted excuses. “Oh, someone is working on that. We’ll get back to you. This is the download and installation group, we can’t do anything. Blah Blah.” They never call back, they never follow through and nothing is ever done. I won’t be sending them any more of my money, and as I have influence over a great many of my fellow creative professionals, I’ll be passing that recommendation on to them all. Leave Adobe alone. There are plenty of alternatives.

I can vouch for the buggy glitchy frustration on the video production side as well. Premiere has been very frustrating. It randomly crashes. Playing with the audio de-noiser makes it crash. The de-noiser will not work for the first couple seconds of a clip and then suddenly turn on. They did an update that added a new audio plugin “dynamics” that combined some existing plugins,which is great, then they deleted those existing plugins from Premier so that all my older projects just lost them. I will now have to re-do the audio for every work in progress on my system and if I ever revisit an older project I will need to redo the audio on that too. That’s how much they think I will love this new plugin. This is so negligent I want to punch one of their developers in the face.

This morning Premiere just took off on me. I pushed play, the audio played with no video and my computer became totally unresponsive to control. WTF!! They push it out with bugs like that? They sell the idea that they can push out updates and how great that is but the updates break things. After Effects has weird artifacts in the text after an update and one of my projects can’t render anymore without crashing. Thanks for the update Adobe. It’s a nightmare.

I HATE the miserable Creative Cloud app – when I need to use Photoshop in a hurry, instead I am forced to run a painfully slow update and it locks me out of even starting Photoshop again until I do the update! What kind of moronic imbeciles think that is acceptable? I get they want us using the latest update but to force you to sit and wait instead of doing the work we need to do – no thanks Adobe. I’m done with this awful ‘service’.

I’ve been using Creative Cloud for 3+ years. I mostly use Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat and Bridge. I have no complaints regarding the apps.

The Creative Cloud file-sharing/collaboration functions are buggy, and behave weirdly. There is little documentation other than standard installation, and “other things to buy” marketing material.

Twice I have had serious issues with collaboration not working as billed, and have not been able to get useful help online, in the forum, or talking with Customer Service. They are apparently coached to reply with a set of canned answers, and don’t seem to have more knowledgeable superiors when the issue is complex.

The feeling I get when I need help with CC is that Adobe is trying to drive sales up at all costs, and very effectively block customers’ access to higher-level customer support.

I’d use other tools if had a choice, out of protest to the false-front customer service.

Adobe Premiere is shit, keeps crashing, really picky with audio drivers, timeline will not play but Adobe insists its my computer even though I have tried on two different systems using different drivers.

While you wait, you can try our community forums, where experts are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to answer your questions.

You can also chat with Adobe experts live on Twitch. See our schedule for Ask the Experts LIVE, and get “How To” video live streams, ask questions, and learn new skills!
You are now chatting with Isha.
Please don’t close the chat window or browser tab since it will end our chat session.
12:28:35
Isha:

Thank you for contacting Adobe Membership Services, my name is Isha. How can I help you today?
12:28:52
CC Customer:

Hi Isha, my account got auto-renewed but i would like to cancel this.
12:30:53
Isha:

i was charged £21.91 I would like a refund of this amount.
12:35:05
Isha:

Okay.
12:35:11
Isha:

As I can see you have Creative Cloud Student and Teacher Edition (one-year).
12:35:21
Isha:

Do you wish to cancel the same?
12:36:24
CC Customer:

Yes, could you confirm that i am within the cancelation period for this new contract?
12:36:45
Isha:

I would like to inform you that Since you agreed to be in a commitment, if you cancel the subscription within the commitment period, there is an Early Termination Fee which amounts to 50% of the remaining months. This fee is as per the contract you agreed to at the time of purchase and was mentioned in the terms and conditions as well.
12:37:34
CC Customer:

this renewal was not my intention. the old contract was renewed hence i still have a grace period to cancel.
12:38:05
CC Customer:

im only 3 days within this new contract
12:38:43
Isha:

I would like to inform you that a new contract is started and if you will cancel it now then you need to pay the cancellation fees.
12:39:14
CC Customer:

what is the grace period to cancel a contract with adobe?
12:40:17
Isha:

If its a new contract then you can cancel it within 14 days but if it is auto renewed then it cannot be cancelled without cancellation fees.
12:40:44
CC Customer:

I did not auto renew the contract
12:42:10
Isha:

We do send out auto renewal emails in the 11th month to the email address registered with Adobe. There can be a slight possibility that the email might have gone to your Junk or the Spam folder and if you do not contact us to stop auto renewal then the subscription gets auto renewed.
12:42:31
CC Customer:

i did not get an email
12:43:42
Isha:

I would like to inform you that an automatic email is always sent to our customers.
12:45:05
CC Customer:

can i have a number to call please
Your chat transcript will be sent to jamarbrwn@hotmail.com at the end of your chat.
12:45:55
Isha:

I would like to inform you that this number will work for you.
12:50:00
CC Customer:

the agreement says there is no annual contract and that im allowed to cancel within 14 days
12:50:37
CC Customer:

sorry
12:51:15
CC Customer:

If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded. Should you cancel after 14 days, you’ll be charged 50% of your remaining contract obligation and your service will continue until the end of that month’s billing period. Cancellations can be made any time by visiting your Manage Account page or by contacting Customer Support.
12:51:35
Isha:

Yes absolutely correct.
12:51:39
Isha:

You’ll be charged the annual rate stated at the time of purchase as one lump sum, plus applicable taxes. Your contract will renew automatically, on your annual renewal date, until you cancel. Renewal rates are subject to change, but we’ll always notify you beforehand. If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded. Should you cancel after 14 days, your payment is non-refundable and your service will continue until the end of your contracted term. Cancellations can be made any time by visiting your Manage Account page or by contacting Customer Support.
12:52:47
CC Customer:

Annual contract, paid monthly Service begins as soon as your initial payment is processed. You’ll be charged the rate stated at the time of purchase, plus applicable taxes (such as value added tax when the stated rate doesn’t include VAT), every month for the duration of your annual contract. If the applicable VAT rate (or other included tax or duty) changes during your one-year term, the tax-inclusive price will adjust accordingly. Your contract will renew automatically, on your annual renewal date, until you cancel. Renewal rates are subject to change, but we’ll always notify you beforehand. If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded. Should you cancel after 14 days, you’ll be charged 50% of your remaining contract obligation and your service will continue until the end of that month’s billing period. Cancellations can be made any time by visiting your Manage Account page or by contacting Customer Support.
12:53:16
CC Customer:

Im on the annual contract paid monthly. The contract end at the end of the year
12:53:34
CC Customer:

the contract starts on initial payment and i have 14 days to cancel.
12:53:44
CC Customer:

or did i read that wrong?
12:54:44
CC Customer:

in my situation my new contract began 23/09/2016 today is 26/09/2016. so i have 13 days left to cancel. so whats the problem?
12:56:59
Isha:

I would like to inform you that this policy is applicable on the new subscription if subscription gets auto renewed then this policy is not applicable.
12:57:32
CC Customer:

Where can i find that information in the contract please ?
12:58:29
Isha:

If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded. Should you cancel after 14 days, your payment is non-refundable and your service will continue until the end of your contracted term. Cancellations can be made any time by visiting your Manage Account page or by contacting Customer Support.
12:59:07
CC Customer:

so are you saying the my annual contract did no end at the end of 12 months ?
12:59:27
CC Customer:

or did it end and then a new contract was started ?
12:59:43
CC Customer:

Cause is say annual contract clearly
12:59:45
Isha:

It was completed and then it was auto renewed.
12:59:58
CC Customer:

is it a new contract yes or no?
13:00:19
Isha:

Its an auto renewed contract.
13:00:39
Isha:

I would suggest you to complete the tenure and to help you continue with the subscription, I can offer you 2 free months. This means you would not have to pay for the next 2 months.
13:00:39
Isha:

13:00:51
CC Customer:

can i have the information for the Auto renewed contract please
13:00:53
Isha:

I apologize for the blank message.
13:01:32
CC Customer:

Can i please of the contract information for the “auto renew contract please”.
13:02:02
CC Customer:

Your contract will renew automatically, on your annual renewal date, until you cancel. Renewal rates are subject to change, but we’ll always notify you beforehand. If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded. Should you cancel after 14 days, you’ll be charged 50% of your remaining contract obligation and your service will continue until the end of that month’s billing period. Cancellations can be made any time by visiting your Manage Account page or by contacting Customer Support.
13:03:09
Isha:

It is mentioned in the same link which I provided you above.
13:04:06
CC Customer:

it says in the information you send me: “If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded.”
13:04:15
CC Customer:

did i read that wrong again?
13:05:01
CC Customer:

Isha, could you please stop wating my time
13:05:10
CC Customer:

im within the 14 days period
13:05:25
Isha:

Yes if you cancel within 14 days your amount will be refunded back to your account but its applicable only on the new order
13:05:27
CC Customer:

Be warned! If you ‘cancel’ your plan with Adobe (this can include customer service signing you up to a different payment plan, but retaining your same Adobe ID) your entire previous BILLING HISTORY will be DELETED. I’m in talks with customer service now to try and get it back. It could be a week before that happens.

Be warned, Adobe CC is a scam. Photoshop and Illustrator constantly crash, Adobe doesn’t notify you when your subscription is coming to an end and you can’t turn off auto-renewal, most designers don’t need every god damn Adobe app but they charge you for them all, and they are terribly sneaky. I can’t wait for Apple’s new design apps to take a steaming dump on Adobe. They can even open some Adobe files (like PSDs).

I work within an in house creative department in a large corporate company. Having used Adobe software particularly Indesign, photoshop and Illustrator, we were as a team very excited to finally get to upgrade to their cloud system earlier this year.

Obviously keen on all the updates to the software, and access to all the resources that come along with it, but one of the biggest selling points for us as a team – 100GB available on the cloud for each user to use anywhere any time, Amazing!

It has however been a disaster! Deadlines are currently zooming past us, and countless hours of staff resources have been wasted trying to resolve issues created around it.

From the get go, it was slow, and sluggish. Files would synch on my side, but my colleague next to me would be seeing something completely different. Computers were suddenly slow to get up and running, and we constantly had to refer to the date we’d last saved an item when passing it over to another member of the team to make sure they were working on the right version!

Then, on the 23rd of October, that’s right, almost a month ago, around 30% of our work literally disappeared off of the cloud! No warning, and as yet, no explanation from Adobe.

I immediately logged the issue on the help desk, and it’s been a nightmare since. 3 online chats, countless e-mails, regularly having to repeat details already given in the overall brief…

That’s a third of our files worked on this year – Gone! With no guarantee yet from Adobe that we’ll ever get them back, or how long they may take to come to some sort of resolution of the issue.

I’ll leave you to imagine what sort of an impact that has on the bottom line of the business… it’s a scary thought!

If anyone has any advice on this issue, or, if by some miracle someone with some swing in Adobe reads this, please help! “I completely understand the situation here.
As I shared earlier [in an e-mail a week prior to this] as well, there is no estimated turnaround time for this to get fixed however I will surely go ahead and contact them on priority and share an update on this with you soon. ” is just not an adequate eplaination we can give a client!

I’m really disappointed as I just expected more from the leader in creative software…

I have to re-iterate the same … Creative cloud is a scam… I purchased it as a student. They claimed it was $19.99 a month for all Adobe products. The monthly fee ended up being $30.90 a month. After the first payment I began to have problems opening dreamweaver. It kept saying my trial had expired. However I wasn’t on the trial .. I had a paid subscription. Nevertheless I went through there supposed support team and they got it working for about 6 days. The next month came. Billing took my $30.90 no problem. Once again error message… trial has ended. I used their chat support and was told that I would need to call on Monday? Isn’t the chat supposed to be 24 hours a day 7 days a week???
Anyway my class ends Monday, so I asked for a cancellation due to their inability to produce a product for the money they received and I was advised I’d be charged the 50% cancellation fee….
I repeated as for a link to a complaint division. They don’t have one.
Very disappointed for a company “claiming” to be a leader in creative software.
All support does is apologize and “wish there was something they could do to help” Reality is …. they can’t.
Don’t waste your money.

After over 20 years of using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator I finally cancelled my Creative Cloud subscription, only to find out they were still charging my credit card.

Just letting everyone know about Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo. Both available for Mac and Windows for only $49 each. In my opinion they match almost feature for feature, and in some ways are actually better. You can find out more here:

Just paid a 50% cancellation fee, my teenager signed up for school on a trial period not a subscription to his knowledge. My debit card is tied to my son’s account at school, since they are using Chromebooks and iPads for all of their school work, I understand that there are apps that are needed, but never have I had to pay a monthly subscription for a school project. Customer service was all about getting their money, it didn’t matter that they were taking advantage of a minor.

Creative Cloud by subscription? DON’T DO IT! Totally agree with Emily. I just tried to cancel my subscription without paying the $150 cancellation fee. I was told they could give me 3 months free, but my renewal date is June 1, 2017 and I can cancel at that time. This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. If they can give me 3 months free, then they can way the $150 fee. They were immovable. I have not used these products and have had this for 2 years. Just finally decided to buy it outright and discontinue the subscription. I am deeply disappointed that this is Adobe’s stance. They were immovable. They also offered to reduce it $9.99 per month, but if I did then I would have to wait for November 2017 before I could cancel. On top of that, I bought the programs that I need outright so this subscription is superfluous to me and I do not use it enough for this to be a good investments. This feels like a hostage situation to me. I guess I could pay the $150 and be done with it, but it is the principle of the thing. I’m not feeling very positive about Adobe at this point. This is the worst and if some executive from Adobe reads this, I hope that you make changes in the way you handle the cancellation of subscriptions.

Sorry this is an old thread, but I have to add my 2 cents in. THANKS! I was thinking about doing this and trying their services and seeing how well it works. I have used PS and DW in the past and it worked great. I honestly think this whole (Cloud) non-sense is Horse$h-t. I should have the right to download and use the software as I need whenever I need especially if I am paying for it and not having to get linked to their servers. Let’s say you want to work on a webpage at 35,000 feet on an airplane, before you could do it. Hopefully this whole cloud crap will crash hard and companies will stop using this garbage. You sir are a great reviewer. THANKS! you certainly changed my mind and I will try out that.

This is the worst thing ever. My advice to anyone is DO NOT SIGN UP FOR AN ADOBE ACCOUNT EVER!

I had a similar experiance to many others.

I had nothing but trouble trying to run it and it caused my system to run slowly and freeze constantly.

I signed up for a Creative Cloud account for a University project for what I thought was a 12 month $24.99 per month subscription only to find that they renewed the account automaticaly and continued to charge my credit card after the 12 months was up.

After contacting support several times (worst Customer support I have ever delt with BTW) they finaly agreed to cancel my subscription but only after charging me additional money, basicaly another 12 month Subscription but with a month thown in for Free and it would be canseled on the 1st of January.

I then I found that after this period was over they were still chaging me and still refused to cancel my subscription and again wanted to charge me an extortonate amount to stop taking my money.

In the end 18 months after my original canseleation request and many times trying to cansel my subscription it took me more than 5 Hrs and 7 chat sessions to the worst Customer Service ever for them to finaly cancel my subscription and agree to stop taking my money.

IF YOU ARE ALREDY SIGNED UP THEN CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION IMMEDATLY.

You may need to pay a lot to do this but don’t be fooled it will end up costing you a lot more if you don’t pay this ransom.

I subscribed to the CC Photography Plan for Individuals in Dec 2016. While the product works as expected, I dont see myself using it as much.

Now when I go to cancel my subscription, Adobe charges me 50% of the outstanding annual dues for the remainder of the year ($49.99). Similar to many users above this was news to me as it is not mentioned anywhere while signing up. Maybe somewhere in the fine print.

Who knew Adobe is in the same category as telephone and cable service providers in terms of customer service!

So I have been and Adobe customer since 1999. I purchased a MAC with the discs and the programs installed. When I attempted to migrate them to my new MAC Adobe revoked the serial numbers saying it was pirated software. I tried to contact them and could not find an easy way so decided to go through Chat. Needless to say Chat was 1 hour 44 minutes only to get passed from one person to the next. About the fifth person, I was cut of with a link to a forum.

I was amazed at their lack of customer care and their business model. Each time the person told me they would give me a discount for CC and that CS5 would no longer be working on Sierra. Really?

So with that said, I went out and found software to replace my Photoshop and Dreamweaver. What I found was amazing: Affinity Photo has all the power, and then some, of Photoshop Elements for $49.00; and EverWeb which sells for $79.00 is really a pretty good software replacement for easier sites. You can still code if you really want to and I like that it has a PayPal/Store built in with Dreamweaver doesn’t.

So I have written off Adobe as being just another money grubbing company that fails the support users that purchase their software for huge bucks.

I have told a number of my friends about Affinity Photo and they are ending their “rental on line” of Photoshop after seeing what this application can do.

I use Adobe CC at work on a Windows machine. It has been nothing but trouble since installation. Every couple of weeks I have to run CC Cleaner and uninstall everything, including obscure folders I never knew about. Adobe support guided me initially (that’s how I found out about the OOBE folder), but in ensuing weeks, had the same issue — Adobe CC app would not work, and I would get errors every time I opened Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat, my go-tos.

Just got off the phone with Adobe support again — they cannot address the recurring problem, just go through the same steps that I’ve done over and over again.

I personally use Adobe software for my workflow. But I’m talking the same software as when Fireworks was still a thing. And I own it outright.

Those versions of illustrator, photoshop & fireworks still serve me well. And I’m old now, so having to spend months learning how to do the same things I can do now. Not worth the effort in my humble opinion. Besides, a tool is only as good as the craftsman anyway. Fancy new brushes can’t make up for years of practical experience in my book.

Alas, I digress. My children. Youtube. Having never been into video editing, and them being eligible for the student discount, I was considering subscribing for a year, see if their enthusiasm would last. (And it would be cheaper to buy outright)

After reading all the nightmares above. I think we’ve all had a lucky escape.

81 thoughts on “Review of Adobe Creative Cloud – It’s the Worst”

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Do not let your student sign up for the Creative Cloud SCAM, after a year the price goes up and when you call to cancel they say you have to pay a 50% cancellation of the unused contract, $133. My daughter was 16 when she signed up for this for a school project. She has now joined the ARMY and will not even have access to a computer. They want a student that makes minimum wage to pay these ridiculous fees! Like Adobe does not have enough money already, and has to steal from the young children in this world! The only solution was to cancel her debt card so they could not charge her anymore. I asked the guy if he read the small print in a contract when he was 16, they should not let minors sign up for stuff like this without parental consent, and he said they only have to be 13. Adobe has seen the last of my money and support.

Yep, just cancelled after a full year of membership. It really is the worst. I will likely go back to my very old copies and use those, until I find new software. It is so sad, as I really liked Photoshop and Illustrator. The CC is expensive and completely unreliable. It often doesn’t work, needs to be reloaded, etc. You cannot cancel before your year is up. Such a big bummer.

I tried to cancel within the 14 trial period and was told it would end without any effort my part. When I was charged the following month, I was told I couldn’t cancel without paying the cancellation fee.

Interesting comments, making me re-think my decision to go to cc.
I’m a photographer and currently using photoshop cs6 and lightroom 5.7
Was thinking about going to cc but after reading so many negative but similar comments, I think I might stay with what I have.
Any comments or thoughts would be welcome.

I love everything about the creative cloud except the execution of the sync and the desktop app. It always freezes my computer. startup Takes forever, shut down takes forever, and thats if it even works. The apps are awesome. If they could figure out that my entire working life shouldn’t have to hinge on the desktop app trying to start it would be awesome. I absolutely hat the desktop app. I cant express it enough, for a company with products i love they have absolutely screwed this one up. I mean the desktop app should be unheard and never a topic of discussion, but it is the worst ever and constantly freezes the computer. My god it sucks. just the worst. rant over.

I am also a photographer using CS6 . 2 months ago i decided to subscribe to the CC as my lightroom crashed and could not be revive !!! What a big mistake ! First the message on installation said that it was corrupted . After few attempts I was able to install it but could not work with any of them. After that all king of bugs appeared on my system : trash do not empty, applications are closing, touch pad not responding, my pro printer refuse to respons, just a real mess … I called them : they want it access to my laptop and I refuse !! So I uninstall everything that had a CC attached to it with their help as it creeps everywhere.

Using my CS6 for all my edits . I do not miss Lightroom as I never liked their filing system .

I upgraded to Adobe CC nearly a year ago. I would love it if Adobe would stop updating the tools in Photoshop and Lightroom, I have a heavy workload to get through and am constantly frustrated by the fact that one minute I know how to use tool and the next time I try to use it, the tool has been changed and now I have to re-learn it. REALLY ANNOYING!

I also had a similar experience with Adobe Creative Cloud. Insisted on taking 50% of the annual subscription and they rely on the Auto-renew passing without being noticed. Took me for over £700. I will find alternatives

They’re still the worst customer service ever. Adobe seems to have gathered for themselves a reputation for THE worst customer support in IT history. I’m having an issue too (they deleted all my files). The help line is no help at all. They just have the same scripted excuses. “Oh, someone is working on that. We’ll get back to you. This is the download and installation group, we can’t do anything. Blah Blah.” They never call back, they never follow through and nothing is ever done. I won’t be sending them any more of my money, and as I have influence over a great many of my fellow creative professionals, I’ll be passing that recommendation on to them all. Leave Adobe alone. There are plenty of alternatives.

I can vouch for the buggy glitchy frustration on the video production side as well. Premiere has been very frustrating. It randomly crashes. Playing with the audio de-noiser makes it crash. The de-noiser will not work for the first couple seconds of a clip and then suddenly turn on. They did an update that added a new audio plugin “dynamics” that combined some existing plugins,which is great, then they deleted those existing plugins from Premier so that all my older projects just lost them. I will now have to re-do the audio for every work in progress on my system and if I ever revisit an older project I will need to redo the audio on that too. That’s how much they think I will love this new plugin. This is so negligent I want to punch one of their developers in the face.

This morning Premiere just took off on me. I pushed play, the audio played with no video and my computer became totally unresponsive to control. WTF!! They push it out with bugs like that? They sell the idea that they can push out updates and how great that is but the updates break things. After Effects has weird artifacts in the text after an update and one of my projects can’t render anymore without crashing. Thanks for the update Adobe. It’s a nightmare.

I HATE the miserable Creative Cloud app – when I need to use Photoshop in a hurry, instead I am forced to run a painfully slow update and it locks me out of even starting Photoshop again until I do the update! What kind of moronic imbeciles think that is acceptable? I get they want us using the latest update but to force you to sit and wait instead of doing the work we need to do – no thanks Adobe. I’m done with this awful ‘service’.

I’ve been using Creative Cloud for 3+ years. I mostly use Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat and Bridge. I have no complaints regarding the apps.

The Creative Cloud file-sharing/collaboration functions are buggy, and behave weirdly. There is little documentation other than standard installation, and “other things to buy” marketing material.

Twice I have had serious issues with collaboration not working as billed, and have not been able to get useful help online, in the forum, or talking with Customer Service. They are apparently coached to reply with a set of canned answers, and don’t seem to have more knowledgeable superiors when the issue is complex.

The feeling I get when I need help with CC is that Adobe is trying to drive sales up at all costs, and very effectively block customers’ access to higher-level customer support.

I’d use other tools if had a choice, out of protest to the false-front customer service.

Adobe Premiere is shit, keeps crashing, really picky with audio drivers, timeline will not play but Adobe insists its my computer even though I have tried on two different systems using different drivers.

While you wait, you can try our community forums, where experts are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to answer your questions.

You can also chat with Adobe experts live on Twitch. See our schedule for Ask the Experts LIVE, and get “How To” video live streams, ask questions, and learn new skills!
You are now chatting with Isha.
Please don’t close the chat window or browser tab since it will end our chat session.
12:28:35
Isha:

Thank you for contacting Adobe Membership Services, my name is Isha. How can I help you today?
12:28:52
CC Customer:

Hi Isha, my account got auto-renewed but i would like to cancel this.
12:30:53
Isha:

i was charged £21.91 I would like a refund of this amount.
12:35:05
Isha:

Okay.
12:35:11
Isha:

As I can see you have Creative Cloud Student and Teacher Edition (one-year).
12:35:21
Isha:

Do you wish to cancel the same?
12:36:24
CC Customer:

Yes, could you confirm that i am within the cancelation period for this new contract?
12:36:45
Isha:

I would like to inform you that Since you agreed to be in a commitment, if you cancel the subscription within the commitment period, there is an Early Termination Fee which amounts to 50% of the remaining months. This fee is as per the contract you agreed to at the time of purchase and was mentioned in the terms and conditions as well.
12:37:34
CC Customer:

this renewal was not my intention. the old contract was renewed hence i still have a grace period to cancel.
12:38:05
CC Customer:

im only 3 days within this new contract
12:38:43
Isha:

I would like to inform you that a new contract is started and if you will cancel it now then you need to pay the cancellation fees.
12:39:14
CC Customer:

what is the grace period to cancel a contract with adobe?
12:40:17
Isha:

If its a new contract then you can cancel it within 14 days but if it is auto renewed then it cannot be cancelled without cancellation fees.
12:40:44
CC Customer:

I did not auto renew the contract
12:42:10
Isha:

We do send out auto renewal emails in the 11th month to the email address registered with Adobe. There can be a slight possibility that the email might have gone to your Junk or the Spam folder and if you do not contact us to stop auto renewal then the subscription gets auto renewed.
12:42:31
CC Customer:

i did not get an email
12:43:42
Isha:

I would like to inform you that an automatic email is always sent to our customers.
12:45:05
CC Customer:

can i have a number to call please
Your chat transcript will be sent to jamarbrwn@hotmail.com at the end of your chat.
12:45:55
Isha:

I would like to inform you that this number will work for you.
12:50:00
CC Customer:

the agreement says there is no annual contract and that im allowed to cancel within 14 days
12:50:37
CC Customer:

sorry
12:51:15
CC Customer:

If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded. Should you cancel after 14 days, you’ll be charged 50% of your remaining contract obligation and your service will continue until the end of that month’s billing period. Cancellations can be made any time by visiting your Manage Account page or by contacting Customer Support.
12:51:35
Isha:

Yes absolutely correct.
12:51:39
Isha:

You’ll be charged the annual rate stated at the time of purchase as one lump sum, plus applicable taxes. Your contract will renew automatically, on your annual renewal date, until you cancel. Renewal rates are subject to change, but we’ll always notify you beforehand. If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded. Should you cancel after 14 days, your payment is non-refundable and your service will continue until the end of your contracted term. Cancellations can be made any time by visiting your Manage Account page or by contacting Customer Support.
12:52:47
CC Customer:

Annual contract, paid monthly Service begins as soon as your initial payment is processed. You’ll be charged the rate stated at the time of purchase, plus applicable taxes (such as value added tax when the stated rate doesn’t include VAT), every month for the duration of your annual contract. If the applicable VAT rate (or other included tax or duty) changes during your one-year term, the tax-inclusive price will adjust accordingly. Your contract will renew automatically, on your annual renewal date, until you cancel. Renewal rates are subject to change, but we’ll always notify you beforehand. If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded. Should you cancel after 14 days, you’ll be charged 50% of your remaining contract obligation and your service will continue until the end of that month’s billing period. Cancellations can be made any time by visiting your Manage Account page or by contacting Customer Support.
12:53:16
CC Customer:

Im on the annual contract paid monthly. The contract end at the end of the year
12:53:34
CC Customer:

the contract starts on initial payment and i have 14 days to cancel.
12:53:44
CC Customer:

or did i read that wrong?
12:54:44
CC Customer:

in my situation my new contract began 23/09/2016 today is 26/09/2016. so i have 13 days left to cancel. so whats the problem?
12:56:59
Isha:

I would like to inform you that this policy is applicable on the new subscription if subscription gets auto renewed then this policy is not applicable.
12:57:32
CC Customer:

Where can i find that information in the contract please ?
12:58:29
Isha:

If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded. Should you cancel after 14 days, your payment is non-refundable and your service will continue until the end of your contracted term. Cancellations can be made any time by visiting your Manage Account page or by contacting Customer Support.
12:59:07
CC Customer:

so are you saying the my annual contract did no end at the end of 12 months ?
12:59:27
CC Customer:

or did it end and then a new contract was started ?
12:59:43
CC Customer:

Cause is say annual contract clearly
12:59:45
Isha:

It was completed and then it was auto renewed.
12:59:58
CC Customer:

is it a new contract yes or no?
13:00:19
Isha:

Its an auto renewed contract.
13:00:39
Isha:

I would suggest you to complete the tenure and to help you continue with the subscription, I can offer you 2 free months. This means you would not have to pay for the next 2 months.
13:00:39
Isha:

13:00:51
CC Customer:

can i have the information for the Auto renewed contract please
13:00:53
Isha:

I apologize for the blank message.
13:01:32
CC Customer:

Can i please of the contract information for the “auto renew contract please”.
13:02:02
CC Customer:

Your contract will renew automatically, on your annual renewal date, until you cancel. Renewal rates are subject to change, but we’ll always notify you beforehand. If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded. Should you cancel after 14 days, you’ll be charged 50% of your remaining contract obligation and your service will continue until the end of that month’s billing period. Cancellations can be made any time by visiting your Manage Account page or by contacting Customer Support.
13:03:09
Isha:

It is mentioned in the same link which I provided you above.
13:04:06
CC Customer:

it says in the information you send me: “If you cancel within 14 days of your order, you’ll be fully refunded.”
13:04:15
CC Customer:

did i read that wrong again?
13:05:01
CC Customer:

Isha, could you please stop wating my time
13:05:10
CC Customer:

im within the 14 days period
13:05:25
Isha:

Yes if you cancel within 14 days your amount will be refunded back to your account but its applicable only on the new order
13:05:27
CC Customer:

Be warned! If you ‘cancel’ your plan with Adobe (this can include customer service signing you up to a different payment plan, but retaining your same Adobe ID) your entire previous BILLING HISTORY will be DELETED. I’m in talks with customer service now to try and get it back. It could be a week before that happens.

Be warned, Adobe CC is a scam. Photoshop and Illustrator constantly crash, Adobe doesn’t notify you when your subscription is coming to an end and you can’t turn off auto-renewal, most designers don’t need every god damn Adobe app but they charge you for them all, and they are terribly sneaky. I can’t wait for Apple’s new design apps to take a steaming dump on Adobe. They can even open some Adobe files (like PSDs).

I work within an in house creative department in a large corporate company. Having used Adobe software particularly Indesign, photoshop and Illustrator, we were as a team very excited to finally get to upgrade to their cloud system earlier this year.

Obviously keen on all the updates to the software, and access to all the resources that come along with it, but one of the biggest selling points for us as a team – 100GB available on the cloud for each user to use anywhere any time, Amazing!

It has however been a disaster! Deadlines are currently zooming past us, and countless hours of staff resources have been wasted trying to resolve issues created around it.

From the get go, it was slow, and sluggish. Files would synch on my side, but my colleague next to me would be seeing something completely different. Computers were suddenly slow to get up and running, and we constantly had to refer to the date we’d last saved an item when passing it over to another member of the team to make sure they were working on the right version!

Then, on the 23rd of October, that’s right, almost a month ago, around 30% of our work literally disappeared off of the cloud! No warning, and as yet, no explanation from Adobe.

I immediately logged the issue on the help desk, and it’s been a nightmare since. 3 online chats, countless e-mails, regularly having to repeat details already given in the overall brief…

That’s a third of our files worked on this year – Gone! With no guarantee yet from Adobe that we’ll ever get them back, or how long they may take to come to some sort of resolution of the issue.

I’ll leave you to imagine what sort of an impact that has on the bottom line of the business… it’s a scary thought!

If anyone has any advice on this issue, or, if by some miracle someone with some swing in Adobe reads this, please help! “I completely understand the situation here.
As I shared earlier [in an e-mail a week prior to this] as well, there is no estimated turnaround time for this to get fixed however I will surely go ahead and contact them on priority and share an update on this with you soon. ” is just not an adequate eplaination we can give a client!

I’m really disappointed as I just expected more from the leader in creative software…

I have to re-iterate the same … Creative cloud is a scam… I purchased it as a student. They claimed it was $19.99 a month for all Adobe products. The monthly fee ended up being $30.90 a month. After the first payment I began to have problems opening dreamweaver. It kept saying my trial had expired. However I wasn’t on the trial .. I had a paid subscription. Nevertheless I went through there supposed support team and they got it working for about 6 days. The next month came. Billing took my $30.90 no problem. Once again error message… trial has ended. I used their chat support and was told that I would need to call on Monday? Isn’t the chat supposed to be 24 hours a day 7 days a week???
Anyway my class ends Monday, so I asked for a cancellation due to their inability to produce a product for the money they received and I was advised I’d be charged the 50% cancellation fee….
I repeated as for a link to a complaint division. They don’t have one.
Very disappointed for a company “claiming” to be a leader in creative software.
All support does is apologize and “wish there was something they could do to help” Reality is …. they can’t.
Don’t waste your money.

After over 20 years of using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator I finally cancelled my Creative Cloud subscription, only to find out they were still charging my credit card.

Just letting everyone know about Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo. Both available for Mac and Windows for only $49 each. In my opinion they match almost feature for feature, and in some ways are actually better. You can find out more here:

Just paid a 50% cancellation fee, my teenager signed up for school on a trial period not a subscription to his knowledge. My debit card is tied to my son’s account at school, since they are using Chromebooks and iPads for all of their school work, I understand that there are apps that are needed, but never have I had to pay a monthly subscription for a school project. Customer service was all about getting their money, it didn’t matter that they were taking advantage of a minor.

Creative Cloud by subscription? DON’T DO IT! Totally agree with Emily. I just tried to cancel my subscription without paying the $150 cancellation fee. I was told they could give me 3 months free, but my renewal date is June 1, 2017 and I can cancel at that time. This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. If they can give me 3 months free, then they can way the $150 fee. They were immovable. I have not used these products and have had this for 2 years. Just finally decided to buy it outright and discontinue the subscription. I am deeply disappointed that this is Adobe’s stance. They were immovable. They also offered to reduce it $9.99 per month, but if I did then I would have to wait for November 2017 before I could cancel. On top of that, I bought the programs that I need outright so this subscription is superfluous to me and I do not use it enough for this to be a good investments. This feels like a hostage situation to me. I guess I could pay the $150 and be done with it, but it is the principle of the thing. I’m not feeling very positive about Adobe at this point. This is the worst and if some executive from Adobe reads this, I hope that you make changes in the way you handle the cancellation of subscriptions.

Sorry this is an old thread, but I have to add my 2 cents in. THANKS! I was thinking about doing this and trying their services and seeing how well it works. I have used PS and DW in the past and it worked great. I honestly think this whole (Cloud) non-sense is Horse$h-t. I should have the right to download and use the software as I need whenever I need especially if I am paying for it and not having to get linked to their servers. Let’s say you want to work on a webpage at 35,000 feet on an airplane, before you could do it. Hopefully this whole cloud crap will crash hard and companies will stop using this garbage. You sir are a great reviewer. THANKS! you certainly changed my mind and I will try out that.

This is the worst thing ever. My advice to anyone is DO NOT SIGN UP FOR AN ADOBE ACCOUNT EVER!

I had a similar experiance to many others.

I had nothing but trouble trying to run it and it caused my system to run slowly and freeze constantly.

I signed up for a Creative Cloud account for a University project for what I thought was a 12 month $24.99 per month subscription only to find that they renewed the account automaticaly and continued to charge my credit card after the 12 months was up.

After contacting support several times (worst Customer support I have ever delt with BTW) they finaly agreed to cancel my subscription but only after charging me additional money, basicaly another 12 month Subscription but with a month thown in for Free and it would be canseled on the 1st of January.

I then I found that after this period was over they were still chaging me and still refused to cancel my subscription and again wanted to charge me an extortonate amount to stop taking my money.

In the end 18 months after my original canseleation request and many times trying to cansel my subscription it took me more than 5 Hrs and 7 chat sessions to the worst Customer Service ever for them to finaly cancel my subscription and agree to stop taking my money.

IF YOU ARE ALREDY SIGNED UP THEN CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION IMMEDATLY.

You may need to pay a lot to do this but don’t be fooled it will end up costing you a lot more if you don’t pay this ransom.

I subscribed to the CC Photography Plan for Individuals in Dec 2016. While the product works as expected, I dont see myself using it as much.

Now when I go to cancel my subscription, Adobe charges me 50% of the outstanding annual dues for the remainder of the year ($49.99). Similar to many users above this was news to me as it is not mentioned anywhere while signing up. Maybe somewhere in the fine print.

Who knew Adobe is in the same category as telephone and cable service providers in terms of customer service!

So I have been and Adobe customer since 1999. I purchased a MAC with the discs and the programs installed. When I attempted to migrate them to my new MAC Adobe revoked the serial numbers saying it was pirated software. I tried to contact them and could not find an easy way so decided to go through Chat. Needless to say Chat was 1 hour 44 minutes only to get passed from one person to the next. About the fifth person, I was cut of with a link to a forum.

I was amazed at their lack of customer care and their business model. Each time the person told me they would give me a discount for CC and that CS5 would no longer be working on Sierra. Really?

So with that said, I went out and found software to replace my Photoshop and Dreamweaver. What I found was amazing: Affinity Photo has all the power, and then some, of Photoshop Elements for $49.00; and EverWeb which sells for $79.00 is really a pretty good software replacement for easier sites. You can still code if you really want to and I like that it has a PayPal/Store built in with Dreamweaver doesn’t.

So I have written off Adobe as being just another money grubbing company that fails the support users that purchase their software for huge bucks.

I have told a number of my friends about Affinity Photo and they are ending their “rental on line” of Photoshop after seeing what this application can do.

I use Adobe CC at work on a Windows machine. It has been nothing but trouble since installation. Every couple of weeks I have to run CC Cleaner and uninstall everything, including obscure folders I never knew about. Adobe support guided me initially (that’s how I found out about the OOBE folder), but in ensuing weeks, had the same issue — Adobe CC app would not work, and I would get errors every time I opened Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat, my go-tos.

Just got off the phone with Adobe support again — they cannot address the recurring problem, just go through the same steps that I’ve done over and over again.

I personally use Adobe software for my workflow. But I’m talking the same software as when Fireworks was still a thing. And I own it outright.

Those versions of illustrator, photoshop & fireworks still serve me well. And I’m old now, so having to spend months learning how to do the same things I can do now. Not worth the effort in my humble opinion. Besides, a tool is only as good as the craftsman anyway. Fancy new brushes can’t make up for years of practical experience in my book.

Alas, I digress. My children. Youtube. Having never been into video editing, and them being eligible for the student discount, I was considering subscribing for a year, see if their enthusiasm would last. (And it would be cheaper to buy outright)

After reading all the nightmares above. I think we’ve all had a lucky escape.